became the road of war. Down its historic waters came Montgomery, with
his three thousand Americans, to capture Montreal and to be driven back
from the walls of Quebec. Among all the singular circumstances that led
up to and accompanied this disastrous attempt to relieve Canadians of
the British yoke, none was more remarkable, or more significant, than
the fact that the bulk of the plucky little army with which Guy Carleton
successfully defended England's northern colony consisted of
French-Canadians--the same down-trodden French-Canadians on whose behalf
Congress had sent an army to drive the British into the sea. As for the
Richelieu, having served for the better part of two centuries as the
pathway of savage and civilised war, its energies were at length turned
into channels of peaceful commerce.
V
THE RIVER OF THE CATARACT
That dread abyss! What mortal tongue may tell
The seething horrors of its watery hell!
Where, pent in craggy walls that gird the deep,
Imprisoned tempests howl, and madly sweep
The tortured floods, drifting from side to side
In furious vortices.
KIRBY.
Father Louis Hennepin, in his _New Discovery of a Vast Country in
America_, gives the earliest known description of the river and falls of
Niagara. "Betwixt the Lake Ontario and Erie," he says, "there is a vast
and prodigious Cadence of Water which falls down after a surprising and
astonishing manner, insomuch that the Universe does not afford its
Parallel. 'Tis true, Italy and Suedeland boast of some such Things; but
we may as well say they are but sorry Patterns, when compar'd to this of
which we now speak. At the foot of this horrible Precipice, we meet
with the River Niagara, which is not above half a quarter of a League
broad, but is wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above
this Descent that it violently hurries down the wild Beasts while
endeavouring to pass it to feed on the other side, they not being able
to withstand the force of its Current, which inevitably casts them down
headlong above Six hundred foot. This wonderful Downfall is compounded
of two great Cross-streams of Water, and two Falls, with an Isle sloping
along the middle of it. The Waters which Fall from this vast height, do
foam and boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an
outrageous Noise, more terrible than that of Thunder; for when the Wind
blows from off the South, their dismal roaring may be heard above
fifteen Leagues off. The River Niagara having thrown itself down this
incredible Precipice, continues its impetuous course for two Leagues
together, to the great Rock, with an inexpressible Rapidity: But having
passed that, its Impetuosity relents, gliding along more gently for two
Leagues, till it arrives at the Lake Ontario, or Frontenac."
This same year, 1678, when Hennepin visited the great falls, La Salle,
with his lieutenants Tonty and La Motte, were busy with preparations for
their western explorations, and in these the Niagara River was to play
an important part. It was about the middle of November when La Motte,
with Father Hennepin and sixteen men, sailed from Fort Frontenac
(Kingston) in a little vessel of ten tons. "The winds and the cold of
the autumn," says Hennepin, "were then very violent, insomuch that our
crew was afraid to go into so little a vessel. This oblig'd us to keep
our course on the north side of the lake, to shelter ourselves under the
coast against the north-west wind." On the twenty-sixth they were in
great danger, a couple of leagues off shore, where they were obliged to
lie at anchor all night. The wind coming round to the north-east,
however, they managed to continue their voyage, and arrived safely at an
Iroquois village called Tajajagon, where Toronto stands to-day. They
ran their little ship into the mouth of the Humber, where the Iroquois
came to barter Indian corn, and gaze in open-mouthed wonder at the
marvellous inventions of the white men. Contrary winds and trouble with
the ice kept them there until the fifth of December, when they crossed
the lake to the mouth of the Niagara. "On the 6th, being St. Nicholas's
Day," says Hennepin, "we got into the fine River Niagara, into which
never any such Ship as ours enter'd before. We sung there Te Deum, and
other prayers, to return our thanks to Almighty God for our prosperous
voyage." After examining the river as far as Chippewa Creek, La Motte,
Hennepin and the men set to work to build a cabin, surrounded by
palisades, two leagues above the mouth of the river. The ground was
frozen, and hot water had to be used to thaw it out before the stakes
could be driven in. The Iroquois, who according to Hennepin had been
very friendly on their arrival at the mouth of the river, presenting
them with fish, imputing their good fortune in the fisheries to the
white men, and examining with interest and astonishment the "great
wooden canoe," grew sullen and suspicious when they saw the strangers
building a fortified house on what they considered peculiarly their own
territory. La Motte and Hennepin went off to the great village of the
Senecas, beyond the Genesee, to obtain their consent to the building of
the fort, but without much success. Soon after their departure, La
Salle and Tonty reached the Seneca village, on their way from Fort
Frontenac to the Niagara. More persuasive, or more fortunate than his
lieutenant, La Salle secured permission not only for the fortified post
at the mouth of the river, but also for a much more important
undertaking which he had planned, the building of a vessel at the upper
end of the Niagara River, to be used in connection with his western
explorations.
During the winter the necessary material for the _Griffin_, as the new
vessel was to be called, was carried over the long portage to the mouth
of Cayuga Creek, above the falls, where a dock was prepared and the keel
laid. La Salle sent the master-carpenter to Hennepin to desire him to
drive the first bolt, but, as he says, his profession obliged him to
decline the honour. La Salle returned to Fort Frontenac, leaving Tonty
to finish the work. The Iroquois, in spite of their agreement with La
Salle, watched the building of the _Griffin_ with jealous
dissatisfaction, and kept the little band of Frenchmen in a state of
constant anxiety. Fortunately, one of their expeditions against the
neighbouring tribes took the majority of them off, and the work was
pushed forward with redoubled zeal, so that it might be completed before
their return. The Indians that remained behind were too few to make an
open attack, but they did their utmost to prevent the completion of the
ship. One of them, feigning drunkenness, attacked the blacksmith and
tried to kill him, but was driven off with a red-hot bar. Hennepin
naively remarks that this, "together with the reprimand he received from
me," obliged him to be gone. A native woman warned Tonty that an
attempt would be made to burn the vessel. Failing in this, the Senecas
tried to starve the French by refusing to sell them corn, and might have
succeeded but for the efforts of two Mohegan hunters, who kept the
workmen supplied with game from the surrounding forest. Finally, the
_Griffin_ was launched, amid the shouts of the French and the yelpings
of the Indians, who forgot their displeasure in the novel spectacle.
She was towed up the Niagara, and on the seventh of August, 1679, La
Salle and his men sailed out over the placid waters of Lake Erie, the
booming of his cannon announcing the approach of the first ship of the
upper lakes. In the _Griffin_ La Salle sailed through Lakes Eric, St.
Clair, and Huron, to Michilimackinac, and thence crossed Lake Michigan
to the entrance to Green Bay, where some of his men, sent on ahead, had
collected a quantity of valuable furs. These he determined to send back
to Canada, to satisfy the clamorous demands of his creditors, while he
continued his voyage to the Mississippi. The _Griffin_ set sail for
Niagara on the eighteenth of September. She never reached her
destination, and her fate has remained one of the mysteries of Canadian
history.
VI
THE HIGHWAY OF THE FUR TRADE
Dear dark-brown waters, full of all the stain
Of sombre spruce-woods and the forest fens,
Laden with sound from far-off northern glens
Where winds and craggy cataracts complain,
Voices of streams and mountain pines astrain,
The pines that brood above the roaring foam
Of La Montague or Des Erables; thine home
Is distant yet, a shelter far to gain.
Aye, still to eastward, past the shadowy lake
And the long slopes of Rigaud toward the sun.
The mightier stream, thy comrade, waits for thee,
The beryl waters that espouse and take
Thine in their deep embrace, and bear thee on
In that great bridal journey to the sea.
LAMPMAN.
While Champlain was in Paris, in 1612, a young man, one Nicolas de
Vignau, whom he had sent the previous year to visit the tribes of the
Ottawa, reappeared, with a marvellous tale of what he had seen on his
travels. He had found a great lake, he said, and out of it a river
flowing north, which he had descended and reached the shores of the sea,
where he had seen the wreck of an English ship. Seventeen days' travel
by canoe, said Vignau, would bring one to the shores of his sea.
Champlain was delighted, and prepared immediately to follow up this
important discovery. He returned to Canada, and about the end of May
1613 set out from Montreal with Vignau and three companions. The rest
of the story is better told in Parkman's words--and Parkman is here at
his very best.
"All day they plied their paddles, and when the night came they made
their campfire in the forest. Day dawned. The east glowed with
tranquil fire, that pierced, with eyes of flame, the fir-trees whose
jagged tops stood drawn in black against the burning heaven. Beneath
the glossy river slept in shadow, or spread far and wide in sheets of
burnished bronze; and the white moon, paling in the face of day, hung
like a disk of silver in the western sky. Now a fervid light touched
the dead top of the hemlock, and, creeping downward, bathed the mossy
beard of the patriarchal cedar, unstirred in the breathless air. Now, a
fiercer spark beamed from the east; and now, half risen on the sight, a
dome of crimson fire, the sun blazed with floods of radiance across the
awakened wilderness.
"The canoes were launched again, and the voyagers held their course.
Soon the still surface was flecked with spots of foam; islets of froth
floated by, tokens of some great convulsion. Then, on their left, the
falling curtain of the Rideau shone like silver betwixt its bordering
woods, and in front, white as a snow-drift, the cataracts of the
Chaudiere barred their way. They saw the unbridled river careering down
its sheeted rocks, foaming in unfathomed chasms, wearying the solitude
with the hoarse outcry of its agony and rage."
While the Indians threw an offering into the foam as an offering to the
Manitou of the cataract, Champlain and his men shouldered their canoes
and climbed over the long portage to the quiet waters of the Lake of the
Chaudiere, now Lake Des Chenes. Past the Falls of the Chats and a long
succession of rapids they made their way, until at last, discouraged by
the difficulties of the river, they took to the woods, and made their
way through them, tormented by mosquitoes, to the village of Tessouat,
one of the principal chiefs of the Algonquins, who welcomed Champlain to
his country.
Feasting, the smoking of ceremonial pipes, and a great deal of
speech-making followed. Champlain asked for men and canoes to conduct
him to the country of the Nipissings, through whom he hoped to reach the
North Sea. Tessouat and his elders looked dubious. They had no love
for the Nipissings, and preferred to keep Champlain among themselves.
Finally, at his urgent solicitation, they agreed, but as soon as he had
left the lodge they changed their minds. Champlain returned and
upbraided them as children who could not hold fast to their word. They
replied that they feared that he would be lost in the wild north
country, and among the treacherous Nipissings.
"But," replied Champlain, "this young man, Vignau, has been to their
country, and did not find the road or the people so bad as you have
said."
"Nicholas," demanded Tessouat, "did you say that you had been to the
Nipissings?"
"Yes," he replied, "I have been there,"
"You are a liar," returned the unceremonious host; "you know very well
that you slept here among my children every night, and got up again
every morning; and if you ever went to the Nipissings, it must have been
when you were asleep. How can you be so impudent as to lie to your
chief, and so wicked as to risk his life among so many dangers? He
ought to kill you with tortures worse than those with which we kill our
enemies."
Vignau held out stoutly for a time, but finally broke down and confessed
his treachery. This "most impudent liar," as Champlain calls him, seems
to have had no more substantial motive for his outrageous fabrication
than vanity and the love of notoriety. Champlain spurned him from his
presence, and in bitter disappointment retraced his steps to Montreal.
From the days of Champlain to the close of the period of French rule,
and for many years thereafter, the Ottawa was known as the main
thoroughfare from Montreal to the great west. Up these waters
generation after generation of fur-traders made their way, their canoes
laden with goods, to be exchanged at remote posts on the Assiniboine,
the Saskatchewan, or the Athabasca, for skins brought in by all the
surrounding tribes. Long before the first settler came to clear the
forest and make a home for himself in the wilderness, these banks echoed
to the shouts of French _voyageurs_ and Indian canoe-men, and the gay
songs of Old Canada. Many a weary hour of paddling under a hot
midsummer sun, and many a long and toilsome portage, were lightened by
the rollicking chorus of "En roulant ma boule," or the tender refrain of
"A la claire fontaine." These inimitable folk-songs became in time a
link between the old days of the fur-trade and the later period of the
lumber traffic. It is indeed not so many years ago that one might sit
on the banks of the Ottawa, in the long summer evenings, and, as the
mighty rafts of logs floated past, catch the familiar refrain, softened
by distance:
Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,
En roulant ma boule roulant,
En roulant ma boule.
VII
THE RED RIVER OF THE NORTH
But, in the ancient woods the Indian old,
Unequal to the chase,
Sighs as he thinks of all the paths untold,
No longer trodden by his fleeting race,
And, westward, on far-stretching prairies damp,
The savage shout, and mighty bison tramp
Roll thunder with the lifting mists of morn.
MAIR.
In September 1738 a party of French explorers left Fort Maurepas, near
the mouth of the Winnipeg River, and, skirting the lower end of Lake
Winnipeg in their canoes, reached the delta of the Red River of the
North. Threading its labyrinthine channels, they finally emerged on the
main stream. The commander of this little band of pathfinders--first of
white men to see the waters of the Red River--was Pierre Gaultier de la
Verendrye, one of the most dauntless and unselfish characters in the
whole history of exploration. Paddling up the river, La Verendrye and
his men finally came to the mouth of the Assiniboine, or the Forks of
the Asiliboiles, as La Verendrye calls it, where he met a party of Crees
with two war-chiefs. The chiefs tried to dissuade him from continuing
his journey toward the west, using the usual native arguments as to the
dangers of the way, and the treachery of other tribes; but La Verendrye
had heard such arguments before, and was not to be turned from his
purpose by dangers, real or assumed. He had set his heart on the
discovery of the Western Sea, and as a means to that end was now on his
way to visit a strange tribe of Indians whose country lay toward the
south-west--the Mandans of the Missouri. Leaving one of his officers
behind to build a fort at the mouth of the Assiniboine, about where the
city of Winnipeg stands to-day, he continued his journey to the west.
Somewhere near the present town of Portage la Prairie, he and his men
built another small post, afterwards known as Fort La Reine. From this
outpost he set out in October, with a selected party of twenty men, for
an overland journey to the Mandan villages on the Missouri. Visiting a
village of Assiniboines on the way, La Verendrye arrived on the banks of
the Missouri on the third of December. Knowing the value of an imposing
appearance, he made his approach to the Mandan village as spectacular as
possible. His men marched in military array, with the French flag borne
in front, and as the Mandans crowded out to meet him, the explorer
brought his little company to a stand, and had them fire a salute of
three volleys, with all the available muskets, to the unbounded
astonishment and no small terror of the Mandans, to whom both the white
men and their weapons were entirely unknown. After spending some time
with the Mandans, La Verendrye returned to Fort La Reine, leaving two of
his men behind to learn the language, and pick up all the information
obtainable as to the unknown country that lay beyond, and the prospects
of reaching the Western Sea by way of the Missouri. The story of La
Verendrye's later explorations, and his efforts to realise his life-long
ambition to reach the shores of the Western Sea, is full of interest,
but lies outside the present subject.
Returning to the Red River of the North, and spanning the interval in
time to the close of the eighteenth century, we find another party of
white men making their way up its muddy waters. This "brigade" of
fur-traders, as it was called, was in charge of a famous Nor'-Wester
known as Alexander Henry, whose voluminous journals were resurrected
from the archives of the Library of Parliament at Ottawa some years ago.
Henry gives us an admirably full picture of the Red River country and
its human and other inhabitants, as they were in his day. One can see
the long string of heavily laden canoes as they forced their way slowly
up the current of the Red River, paddles dipping rhythmically to the
light-hearted chorus of some old Canadian _chanson_. At night the camp
is pitched on some comparatively high ground, fires are lighted, kettles
hung, and the evening meal despatched. Then the men gather about the
camp-fires, fill their pipes, and an hour is spent in song and story.
They turn in early, however, for the day's paddling has been long and
heavy, and they must be off again before daylight on the morrow. So the
story runs from day to day.
They reach the mouth of the Assiniboine, and Henry notes the ruins of La
Verendrye's old Fort Rouge. Old residents of Winnipeg will appreciate
his feeling references to the clinging character of the soil about the
mouth of the Assiniboine: "The last rain had turned it into a kind of
mortar that adheres to the foot like tar, so that at every step we raise
several pounds of it."
These were the days when the buffalo roamed in vast herds throughout the
great western plains. One gets from Henry's narrative some idea of
their almost inconceivable numbers. As he ascended the Red River, the
country seemed alive with them. The "beach, once a soft black mud into
which a man would sink knee-deep, is now made hard as pavement by the
numerous herds coming to drink. The willows are entirely trampled and
torn to pieces; even the bark of the smaller trees is rubbed off in
places. The grass on the first bank of the river is entirely worn
away." As the brigade nears the point where the international boundary
crosses the Red River, an immense herd is seen, "commencing about half a
mile from the camp, whence the plain was covered on the west side of the
river as far as the eye could reach. They were moving southward slowly,
and the meadow seemed as if in motion."
One further glimpse from Henry's Journal will serve to give some idea of
life on the banks of the Red River at the beginning of the last century.
Henry is describing the "bustle and noise which attended the
transportation of _five_ pieces of trading goods" from his own fort to
one of the branch establishments.
"Antoine Payet, guide and second in command, leads the van, with a cart
drawn by two horses and loaded with his private baggage, cassettes,
bags, kettles, etc. Madame Payet follows the cart with a child a year
old on her back, very merry. Charles Bottineau, with two horses and a
cart loaded with one and a half packs, his own baggage, and two young
children, with kettles and other trash hanging on to it. Madame
Bottineau, with a squalling infant on her back, scolding and tossing it
about. Joseph Dubord goes on foot, with his long pipe-stem and calumet
in his hand; Madame Dubord follows on foot, carrying his tobacco-pouch
with a broad bead-tail. Antoine La Pointe, with another cart and
horses, loaded with two pieces of goods and with baggage belonging to
Brisebois, Jasmin and Pouliot, and a kettle hung on each side. Auguste
Brisebois follows with only his gun on his shoulder and a fresh-lighted
pipe in his mouth. Michel Jasmin goes next, like Brisebois, with gun
and pipe, puffing out clouds of smoke. Nicolas Pouliot, the greatest
smoker in the North-West, has nothing but pipe and pouch. These three
fellows, having taken a farewell dram and lighted fresh pipes, go on
brisk and merry, playing numerous pranks. Domin Livernois, with a young
mare, the property of Mr. Langlois, loaded with weeds for smoking, an
old worsted bag (madame's property), some squashes and potatoes, a small
keg of fresh water, and two young whelps howling. Next goes Livernois'
young horse, drawing a _travaille_ loaded with his baggage and a large
worsted _mashguemcate_ belonging to Madame Langlois. Next appears
Madame Cameron's mare, kicking, rearing, and snorting, hauling a
_travaille_ loaded with a bag of flour, cabbages, turnips, onions, a
small keg of water, and a large kettle of broth. Michel Langlois, who
is master of the band, now comes on leading a horse that draws a
_travaille_ nicely covered with a new-painted tent, under which his
daughter and Mrs. Cameron lie at full length, very sick; this covering
or canopy has a pretty effect in the caravan, and appears at a great
distance in the plains. Madame Langlois brings up the rear of the human
beings, following the _travaille_ with a slow step and melancholy air,
attending to the wants of her daughter, who, notwithstanding her
sickness, can find no other expressions of gratitude to her parents than
by calling them dogs, fools, beasts, etc. The rear guard consists of a
long train of twenty dogs--some for sleighs, some for game, and others
of no use whatever, except to snarl and destroy meat. The total forms a
procession nearly a mile long, and appears like a large band of
Assiniboines."
To the uninitiated, it may be explained that a _cassette_ is a box for
carrying small articles; calumet is, of course, the Indian pipe; a
_travaille_ is a primitive species of conveyance, consisting of a couple
of long poles, one end fastened to a horse or dog, as the case may be,
and the other trailing on the ground. Cross-bars lashed midway hold the
poles together, and serve as a foundation for whatever load, human or
otherwise, it is intended to carry. _Mashguemcate_ is a species of bag,
a general receptacle for odds and ends.
VIII
THE MIGHTY MACKENZIE
I love thee, O thou great, wild, rugged land
Of fenceless field and snowy mountain height,
Uprearing crests all starry-diademed
Above the silver clouds.
LAUT.
There was a man in the western fur-trade who felt that other things were
better worth while than the bartering of blankets and beads for
beaver-skins. His heart responded to the compelling cry of the unknown,
and one bright June day, in the year 1789, he set forth in quest of
other worlds. The man was Alexander Mackenzie, and the worlds he sought
to conquer were those of the far north. There was said to be a mighty
river whose waters no white man had ever yet seen, whose source and
outlet could only be guessed at, from the vague reports of Indians,
whose banks were said to be infested with bloodthirsty tribes, and whose
course was broken by so many and dangerous cataracts that no traveller
might hope to navigate its waters and live.
Mackenzie, chafing at the dreary monotony of the fur-trader's life,
listened eagerly to all such tales. He knew enough of Indian character
to make due allowances for exaggerations; but had all that he heard been
true, the prospect of danger would only have whetted his appetite for
exploration. From his post, Fort Chipewyan, on Lake Athabasca, the way
lay clear, and he launched his canoe, manned by four Canadian
_voyageurs_, while his Indian interpreters and hunters followed in a
second. To Great Slave Lake they were on familiar waters, but beyond
all was conjecture.